Modifying original geographic location for viewing by a user in a multilingual collaborative gaming environment

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are systems, methods, and computer readable media for providing a collaborative communication environment. The method embodiment comprises receiving user profiles, establishing a collaborative communication environment where a plurality of users simultaneously interact over a network, converting data to be sent to each user in a collaborative environment based on the respective user&#39;s profile, and presenting a localized experience to each user using the converted data.

PRIORITY INFORMATION

The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/539,952, filed Jul. 2, 2012, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,754,241,issued on Sep. 5, 2017, which is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 12/627,421, filed Nov. 30, 2009, now U.S. Pat. No.8,214,435, issued on Jul. 3, 2012, which is a continuation of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 11/687,800, filed Mar. 19, 2007, now U.S.Pat. No. 7,631,040, issued Dec. 8, 2009, the contents of which areincorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to multiuser networkcommunications and more specifically to a multilingual collaborativenetwork gaming system.

2. Introduction

Currently, multiple users can interact over a network such as theinternet and each participates in the same virtual environment such asan internet game. Such an environment may involve multiple users atclient devices, each communicating over a network with a central serverin which commands are received from each client, and data is transmittedfrom the server to each individual client device such that each user isparticipating in a similar game simultaneously. Often, each user may befrom different geographic areas or come from different cultures.Accordingly, what is needed in the art is an improved virtualenvironment which may accommodate users having different backgrounds anddifferent geographic locations.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth inthe description which follows, and in part will be obvious from thedescription, or may be learned by practice of the invention. Thefeatures and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained bymeans of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out inthe appended claims. These and other features of the present inventionwill become more fully apparent from the following description andappended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention asset forth herein.

Disclosed herein are systems, methods and computer readable media forproviding a collaborative communication environment. An exemplary methodembodiment of the invention comprises receiving user profiles,establishing a collaborative communication environment wherein aplurality of users simultaneously interact over a network, convertingdata to be sent to each user in a collaborative environment based on therespective user's profile and presenting a localized user experience toeach person using the converted data.

The principles of the invention may be utilized to provide, for examplein a network gaming environment, an individualized user experience thatmay be better tailored to a user's culture, language, sensitivities, ageand so forth. In this manner, as different users in different part ofthe world interact in a simultaneous environment such as an online game,features of that game that may be inappropriate for a particular userthat may be in realtime modified such that users across differentcultures and different sensibilities can, nevertheless, simultaneouslyinteract via an online experience such as the game.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and otheradvantages and features of the invention can be obtained, a moreparticular description of the invention briefly described above will berendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which areillustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawingsdepict only typical embodiments of the invention and are not thereforeto be considered to be limiting of its scope, the invention will bedescribed and explained with additional specificity and detail throughthe use of the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a basic system or computing device embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 2 illustrates an example server-client network in a collaborativenetwork interaction;

FIG. 3 illustrates a method embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 4 illustrates another method embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Various embodiments of the invention are discussed in detail below.While specific implementations are discussed, it should be understoodthat this is done for illustration purposes only. A person skilled inthe relevant art will recognize that other components and configurationsmay be used without parting from the spirit and scope of the invention.

With reference to FIG. 1, an exemplary system for implementing theinvention includes a general-purpose computing device 100, including aprocessing unit (CPU) 120 and a system bus 110 that couples varioussystem components including the system memory such as read only memory(ROM) 140 and random access memory (RAM) 150 to the processing unit 120.Other system memory 130 may be available for use as well. It can beappreciated that the invention may operate on a computing device withmore than one CPU 120 or on a group or cluster of computing devicesnetworked together to provide greater processing capability. The systembus 110 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memorybus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any ofa variety of bus architectures. A basic input/output (BIOS), containingthe basic routine that helps to transfer information between elementswithin the computing device 100, such as during start-up, is typicallystored in ROM 140. The computing device 100 further includes storagemeans such as a hard disk drive 160, a magnetic disk drive, an opticaldisk drive, tape drive or the like. The storage device 160 is connectedto the system bus 110 by a drive interface. The drives and theassociated computer readable media provide nonvolatile storage ofcomputer readable instructions, data structures, program modules andother data for the computing device 100. The basic components are knownto those of skill in the art and appropriate variations are contemplateddepending on the type of device, such as whether the device is a small,handheld computing device, a desktop computer, or a computer server.

Although the exemplary environment described herein employs the harddisk, it should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that othertypes of computer readable media which can store data that areaccessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memorycards, digital versatile disks, cartridges, random access memories(RAMs), read only memory (ROM), a cable or wireless signal containing abit stream and the like, may also be used in the exemplary operatingenvironment.

To enable user interaction with the computing device 100, an inputdevice 190 represents any number of input mechanisms, such as amicrophone for speech, a touch-sensitive screen for gesture or graphicalinput, keyboard, mouse, motion input, speech and so forth. The input maybe used by the presenter to indicate the beginning of a speech searchquery. The device output 170 can also be one or more of a number ofoutput means. In some instances, multimodal systems enable a user toprovide multiple types of input to communicate with the computing device100. The communications interface 180 generally governs and manages theuser input and system output. There is no restriction on the inventionoperating on any particular hardware arrangement and therefore the basicfeatures here may easily be substituted for improved hardware orfirmware arrangements as they are developed.

For clarity of explanation, the illustrative embodiment of the presentinvention is presented as comprising individual functional blocks(including functional blocks labeled as a “processor”). The functionsthese blocks represent may be provided through the use of either sharedor dedicated hardware, including, but not limited to, hardware capableof executing software. For example the functions of one or moreprocessors presented in FIG. 1 may be provided by a single sharedprocessor or multiple processors. (Use of the term “processor” shouldnot be construed to refer exclusively to hardware capable of executingsoftware.) Illustrative embodiments may comprise microprocessor and/ordigital signal processor (DSP) hardware, read-only memory (ROM) forstoring software performing the operations discussed below, and randomaccess memory (RAM) for storing results. Very large scale integration(VLSI) hardware embodiments, as well as custom VLSI circuitry incombination with a general purpose DSP circuit, may also be provided.

The present invention relates to modifying output from a central datalocation within a network that provides for a unique experience toindividual users. One preferred example and an application in which thepresent invention may be applied related to Internet video games. FIG. 2illustrates basic example of a network 200 in which server 202communicates simultaneously with client device 204, 206 and 208. Thesedevices may be communicating with each other via the server through alocal area network or a wide area network such as the Internet. Any typeof network may be utilized to enable client devices 204, 206, 208 tocommunicate and transmit data back and forth to each other. It isgenerally irrelevant in terms of the present invention regarding thenetwork used to implement the present invention. As noted above, in somecases the individual participants in a network game may come fromdifferent cultures or different geographic areas. Intermittent lines210, 212, 214 in FIG. 2 are meant to illustrate that the various clientdevices are in geographically disperse areas. Therefore, in this regard,client device 204 may be in France, client device 206 may be in China,and client device 208 may be in the United States of America. In thisscenario, each individual user may speak a different language, have adifferent culture and have different sensitivities to content that maybe part of a video game. For example, some cultures may be moresensitive to depictions of violence. Each user from a distinctgeographic location may nevertheless want to simultaneously play thesame video game.

An aspect of the present invention enables individual cultural andlanguage services which may be applied to gaming or other collaborativeservices in which players register with a network in advance ofbeginning to play a game. The information which may be retrieved fromeach user may include a preferred language, a location or preferredlocation, cultural information, potentially the individual's race, age,other personalized preferences, and so forth. Via the registrationprocess, each user obtains a user profile which is stored in thenetwork. The user profiles will influence the customization of controls,signals and data which are the basis for the interaction and the userexperience between each individual user and the server. Thecustomization may occur on specific games between specific players. Forexample, a French-speaking player may play games with anEnglish-speaking player in such a network environment wherein theindividual user experience for each player is customized such that thelanguage is presented in French or English respectively. In some cases,the user may also be speaking as part of the gaming experience whereinan automatic speech recognition system may receive commands or otherinput from the user. In the dynamic customizable aspect of the presentinvention, the system will automatically utilize grammar that isappropriate for each individual user. For example, French grammar may beimplemented to receive voice input from the French user and US grammarmay be utilized to receive voice input from the US participant.Furthermore, realtime interactive data may also be influenced byindividual user profiles such that if this French speaker, for example,yells out a command of “fire,” the automatic speech recognition softwaremay recognize that command, other known software will understand themeaning or task to be performed based on that command act on the commandand cause a translation of that command to be output via text, speech orother speech-generating means. The user in the United States hears theword “fire” in English as well as both the US player and French playerbeing able to experience in the environment the effects of that commandbeing carried out, such as a gun being fired or some other eventoccurring.

Other aspects of the invention include automatic signaling and controlconversion for multicultural displays in the context of a sharedexperience such as network gaming. In addition to language, currentdisplays may not be appropriate for the individuals due to culturaldifferences noted above. The present architecture provides anenvironment for an experience between people from various countries orcultures. In addition, the network-based servers and the applicationsrunning thereon provide fairness for realtime exchanges of controlswhere each command or control signal is stamped and cued according to asingle superframe wherein all moves and controls are considered. In thisregard, there may be some aspects of a person's culture or geographiclocation in which various modifications may need to be made either intheir user experience or the user experiences of other cultures orgeographic locations such that their opportunity for competition in thegaming environment may need to be brought to a level playing field.Accordingly, the various controls and input from each individual userare analyzed at least in part based on the individual user profiles andperhaps other realtime data to provide a fair experience for allparticipants in the video game or other video collaborative multimediaexperience.

The user profiles are used in realtime to dynamically adopt displays inthe multimedia presentation in the single superframe. The presentsolution provides language, sound or phrase automatic conversion tomatch each individual user's desires. In this regard, the systemprovides information such as audio, an avatar or a virtual agent thatmay speak instructions or speak other kinds of information; eachindividual user will receive in their respective language and perhapseven in a particular dialect the converted data such that it matchesthat individual user's profile. The implementation of this approach mayoccur several different ways. For example, the system may generate via agaming module or dialog module the base text which is to be spoken by anentity to each individual user. This text may then be transmitted to aparticular module that is utilized to perform the conversion of data foreach individual user. In this case, each individual module will processthe text either for conversion to spoken language and/or othermodification such that the basic text is converted appropriately andthen transmitted to an appropriate text-to-speech module which generatesthe audible voice. Following on the example above, the French user maythen receive what initially began as an English message, which is thenconverted to text, and the text in French is then sent to atext-to-speech module generated for the French language in which theaudio is heard in French by that user.

Similarly, other cultural modifications may occur. For example, aparticular scene may be generated in a base state. Would assume in sucha scene that a condition occurs in which one of the players shoot adragon. The basic scene information may be generated which would includethe death of this dragon, which may be illustrated in the base form in aviolent and bloody manner. The base scene illustration may then beprocessed by each individual module such that its parameters in thatscene may be adjusted to reduce the level of violence in that particularscene for individual players of the game. Then the visual output foreach individual player may be so modified such that essentiallysimultaneously each viewer will have an individual view of thatparticular action within the gaming environment in which the dragon waskilled.

As can be appreciated, there may be many facets of the interactiveexperience which can be modified according to the principles of theinvention. For example, in some cases the language used in a video gamemay be quite inappropriate to varying degrees in different cultures. Forexample, in this scenario if a particular player or virtual actor in theenvironment is to make a statement in the environment that ispotentially offensive to either the culture or age of a participant andso on, then that language may be processed by an individual module thatis processing data according to individual user profiles such that thelanguage can be either reduced in its offensiveness or eliminated orreplaced with less offensive and appropriate language. Thus, theparticular virtual person in the gaming environment may say differentthings to each individual user, while maintaining the basic meaning ofthe message such that the collaboration of all the users will continuein the virtual environment.

FIG. 3 illustrates a method of monitoring the invention. The method istypically practiced within a computing environment such as that shown bythe example in FIG. 2. In other words, the steps of the method willtypically occur on a server or similarly configured device 202. Themethod comprises receiving user profiles (302). These will be typicallyreceived via the internet such that each individual user will go to aparticular website for a particular environment such as a game and entertheir user profile data. The method will typically involve establishinga collaborative communication environment where a plurality of userssimultaneously interacts over a network, such as the internet. As hasbeen noted, one example of such an environment is an internet video gamein which multiple users can access a server or servers and in realtimeplay the internet game against each other. Next, the method comprisesconverting data sent to each user based on an expected user's profile(304). Various aspects of this have been discussed herein, wherein datathat is generated, whether it be audio, video, multimedia or acombination of such data, that is to be sent to each individual userwill be converted into the modified form based at least in part on therespective user's profile. Other factors may also be involved inconverting the data, such as current geographic location of the user, ifthat is information that is available, and other realtime data. Themethod also comprised presenting a localized experience to each user(306) in the collaborative environment. Thus, in the collaborativeinteraction each user will have an experience that is more closelyaligned with their particular culture, interests and sensibilities.

FIG. 4 illustrates another embodiment of this disclosure. As shown, anexample method includes receiving a profile associated with a first user(402), determining, based on the profile, a first geographic locationassociated with the first user (404), and receiving original data to becommunicated to the first user and a second user, wherein the first userand the second user are game participants, and wherein the original datacomprises an original geographic location (406). The method furtherincludes analyzing, via a processor and using the first geographiclocation, the original data, to yield an analysis (408), modifying theoriginal data being communicated to the first user based on the analysissuch that the original geographic location is modified to the firstgeographic location for viewing by the first user, to yield culturallyacceptable data (410), communicating the culturally acceptable data tothe first user (412) and communicating the original data to a seconduser (414).

The method can further include modifying original data by removing, fromthe original data which is to be communicated, the original geographiclocation. Further, modifying the original data can also includenormalizing the original data based on the quality in the gamingenvironment. Finally, the method could further include establishing acollaborative communication environment associated with the firstgeographic location (416).

Additional mechanisms may also be utilized in order to modify theindividual experience of each user. For example, a sliding scale, slidebar, buttons, multi-modal input or other mechanisms may be employed suchthat dynamically in the middle of an online collaboration individualuser feedback may be received such that a modification of the experiencemay be dynamically altered. For example, a sliding scale from 1-10 maybe included on a user display that relates to a level of violence thatthe user is willing to tolerate in the context of the collaboration.Thus, if in the middle of an online game or other collaborativeenvironment the user may manipulate a slider such that the data sent tothat user is modified into reducing or increasing the particularparameter in response to the movement of the slider. Furthermore, otherimplicit input may also be utilized in the process of adjusting eachuser's experience. For example, an analysis may be performed on theskill level of the individual user such that upon meeting a certainthreshold, the system would determine if the user is perhaps youngerthan a user profile indicates or that the system otherwise understoodthe user to be. In such a scenario, the system may then automaticallyreduce the level of violence or any other parameter that is associatedwith the particular user's interactive experience such that it matchesimplicitly the age of the user. Any type of user interaction may bereceived in order to make such determinations. For example, voice,temperature graphitic input and any other kind of multi-modalinteraction may be received and analyzed for the purpose of determiningwhether to adjust the individual user experience.

Embodiments within the scope of the present invention may also includecomputer-readable media for carrying or having computer-executableinstructions or data structures stored thereon. Such computer-readablemedia can be any available media that can be accessed by a generalpurpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and notlimitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM,CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or othermagnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to carryor store desired program code means in the form of computer-executableinstructions or data structures. When information is transferred orprovided over a network or another communications connection (eitherhardwired, wireless, or combination thereof) to a computer, the computerproperly views the connection as a computer-readable medium. Thus, anysuch connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium.Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope ofthe computer-readable media.

Computer-executable instructions include, for example, instructions anddata which cause a general purpose computer, special purpose computer,or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function orgroup of functions. Computer-executable instructions also includeprogram modules that are executed by computers in stand-alone or networkenvironments. Generally, program modules include routines, programs,objects, components, and data structures, etc. that perform particulartasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer-executableinstructions, associated data structures, and program modules representexamples of the program code means for executing steps of the methodsdisclosed herein. The particular sequence of such executableinstructions or associated data structures represents examples ofcorresponding acts for implementing the functions described in suchsteps.

Those of skill in the art will appreciate that other embodiments of theinvention may be practiced in network computing environments with manytypes of computer system configurations, including personal computers,hand-held devices, multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based orprogrammable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframecomputers, and the like. Embodiments may also be practiced indistributed computing environments where tasks are performed by localand remote processing devices that are linked (either by hardwiredlinks, wireless links, or by a combination thereof) through acommunications network. In a distributed computing environment, programmodules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.

Although the above description may contain specific details, they shouldnot be construed as limiting the claims in any way. Other configurationsof the described embodiments of the invention are part of the scope ofthis invention. For example, environments such as educationalenvironments, business environments, religious environments and so forthmay involve on-line collaboration in which cultural or individual viasensibilities may be taken into account in the presentation.Accordingly, the appended claims and their legal equivalents should onlydefine the invention, rather than any specific examples given.

We claim:
 1. A method comprising: receiving first geographic locationdata associated with a first physical location of a first user andsecond geographic location data associated with a second physicallocation of a second user; normalizing, via a normalization module and aprocessor, the first geographic location data such that the firstgeographic location data is modified according to visual characteristicsof a preferred geographic location for viewing by the first user, toyield modified geographic location data, wherein the preferredgeographic location is independent of the first physical location of thefirst user; communicating, via communication module, the modifiedgeographic location data to a first device associated with the firstuser as part of a collaborative communication environment; andcommunicating the second geographic location data to a second userdevice associated with the second user as part of the collaborativecommunication environment, wherein the communicating of the modifiedgeographic location data and the communicating of the second geographiclocation data each occur prior to the first user and the second usertaking part in the collaborative communication environment.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the collaborative communication environmentcomprises a gaming environment accessed by the first user and the seconduser.
 3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: determining, basedon a profile, the preferred geographic location associated with thefirst user.
 4. The method of claim 3, further comprising: receivingoriginal data to be communicated to the first user and the second user,wherein the first user and the second user are game participants in agaming environment operating on a gaming computer system.
 5. The methodof claim 4, wherein the original data references an original geographiclocation.
 6. The method of claim 5, further comprising: modifying theoriginal data being communicated to the first device based on ananalysis of the preferred geographic location and the original data. 7.The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the original data comprisesremoving, from the original data which is to be communicated, theoriginal geographic location.
 8. A system comprising: a processor; anormalization module; and a computer-readable storage device havinginstructions stored which, when executed by the processor, cause theprocessor to perform operations comprising: receiving first geographiclocation data associated with a first physical location of a first userand second geographic location data associated with a second physicallocation of a second user; normalizing, via a normalization module, thefirst geographic location data such that the first geographic locationdata is modified according to visual characteristics of a preferredgeographic location for viewing by the first user, to yield modifiedgeographic location data, wherein the preferred geographic location isindependent of the first physical location of the first user;communicating the modified geographic location data to a first deviceassociated with the first user as part of a collaborative communicationenvironment; and communicating the second geographic location data to asecond user device associated with the second user as part of thecollaborative communication environment, wherein the communicating ofthe modified geographic location data and the communicating of thesecond geographic location data each occur prior to the first user andthe second user taking part in the collaborative communicationenvironment.
 9. The system of claim 8, wherein the collaborativecommunication environment comprises a gaming environment accessed by thefirst user and the second user.
 10. The system of claim 8, wherein thecomputer-readable storage device stores additional instructions which,when executed by the processor, cause the processor to performoperations further comprising: determining, based on a profile, thepreferred geographic location associated with the first user.
 11. Thesystem of claim 10, wherein the computer-readable storage device storesadditional instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause theprocessor to perform operations further comprising: receiving originaldata to be communicated to the first user and the second user, whereinthe first user and the second user are game participants in a gamingenvironment operating on a gaming computer system.
 12. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the original data references an original geographiclocation.
 13. The system of claim 12, wherein the computer-readablestorage device stores additional instructions which, when executed bythe processor, cause the processor to perform operations furthercomprising: modifying the original data being communicated to the firstdevice based on an analysis of the preferred geographic location and theoriginal data.
 14. The system of claim 8, wherein modifying the originaldata comprises removing, from the original data which is to becommunicated, the original geographic location.
 15. A computer-readablestorage device having instructions stored which, when executed on acomputing device, cause the computing device to perform operationscomprising: receiving first geographic location data associated with afirst physical location of a first user and second geographic locationdata associated with a second physical location of a second user;normalizing, via a normalization module, the first geographic locationdata such that the first geographic location data is modified accordingto visual characteristics of a preferred geographic location for viewingby the first user, to yield modified geographic location data, whereinthe preferred geographic location is independent of the first physicallocation of the first user; communicating the modified geographiclocation data to a first device associated with the first user as partof a collaborative communication environment; and communicating thesecond geographic location data to a second user device associated withthe second user as part of the collaborative communication environment,wherein the communicating of the modified geographic location data andthe communicating of the second geographic location data each occurprior to the first user and the second user taking part in thecollaborative communication environment.
 16. The computer-readablestorage device of claim 15, wherein the collaborative communicationenvironment comprises a gaming environment accessed by the first userand the second user.
 17. The computer-readable storage device of claim15, wherein the computer-readable storage device stores additionalinstructions which, when executed on the computing device, cause thecomputing device to perform operations further comprising: determining,based on a profile, the preferred geographic location associated withthe first user.
 18. The computer-readable storage device of claim 17,wherein the computer-readable storage device stores additionalinstructions which, when executed on the computing device, cause thecomputing device to perform operations further comprising: receivingoriginal data to be communicated to the first user and the second user,wherein the first user and the second user are game participants in agaming environment operating on a gaming computer system.
 19. Thecomputer-readable storage device of claim 18, wherein the original datareferences an original geographic location.
 20. The computer-readablestorage device of claim 19, wherein the computer-readable storage devicestores additional instructions which, when executed on the computingdevice, cause the computing device to perform operations furthercomprising: modifying the original data being communicated to the firstdevice based on an analysis of the preferred geographic location and theoriginal data.